


I Was A Star

by Xenamorph



Category: Christian Tradition Lore & Folklore, Wizard101 (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Fallen Angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26240695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenamorph/pseuds/Xenamorph
Relationships: Jordan Crisp/Neela Kumar
Kudos: 1





	I Was A Star

"I was a star, once," Jordan's voice was soft and regretful as she stared up at the sky. She was often staring at the sky, staring at all of the bright lights that she used to be apart of, after falling she tended to wax poetic about the past. It wasn't great, she was still more than aware that her creator wasn't kind and that she was only created as some heavenly weapon, but oh she missed some aspects. She missed the eyes and the power and the fact that everything was so much easier when she had orders. Easier, but worse. If she had followed orders, Neela would be dead. If she had followed orders, she wouldn't have ever found the beauty of things that were so human and fleeting that Angels never looked twice.

"Oh?" Neela asked from her spot leaning up against the chimney of their house, there was a little bit of a question in her voice. A little trepidition as well and Jordan remembered how sad that Neela was when her wings burned up and she was just left with ash. Ash and dust and tiny little bone fragments that were a mockery of the star-stuff that she used to be made out of. A little bit of stiffness entered her body, something that Jordan only saw out of the corner of her eye, but it wasn't enough for her to stop playing on her Switch.

"I used to be a _star_ , Kumar, I used to be brilliant and bright and super heated. I burned and burned and burned, and it was wonderful." Jordan almost was crying (not that she could cry, even in this less-than angelic form there were some human things out of her reach). "I burned and I shone and then I met you..." She trailed off, fiddling with a small piece of bone in her lap. It was only around the size of her hand, just something bright white and the last little remainder of her holiness. "And suddenly there was light in _my_ life, a light I didn't create."

"Oh." Neela paused, both in form and also her game as she set her switch down on the other side of her. She moved to sit next to Jordan, just like she used to do when Jordan still had her wings to cover her. "Y'know, you were pretty brilliant when I first saw you. Like not just because of the bleeding eye thing and the holy light and the wings that broke like all of my windows-" She gave a little laugh, shifting to lean again Jordan, pressing her cheek up against her shoulder. "But you were fascinating, and strange, and beautiful."

"I think most of my beauty has long since fled, Kumar darling," Jordan sighed out as she turned the smoothed piece of bone over and over again in her hands, "But I am glad that you thought that once,"

"I still think that, Jordan," Neela frowned slightly as she reached up to turn Jordan's head down towards her. The ex-angel (fallen angel, though she didn't fall like most did) was still a good deal taller than her, even though she had shrunk down considerably from her original height, "You're still beautiful, wings or no wings, thousand eyes or just two. You were beautiful to me from the point that I heard your voice, whatever you look like now is a bonus."

Jordan let out a pleased little chirr at the compliment, leaning to slightly nuzzle Neela's hand like an overly affectionate cat, "You're too kind to me, Neela Kumar."

"You can call me just Neela, you know. I think we've been through enough that you don't have to keep using either nicknames or my last name. I mean, I call you Jordan."

"You calling me Jordan isn't really comparable to me using your given name, Jordan is a name that I chose at random, it was assigned to me. But really, I appreciate you giving me the permission." Jordan grinned slightly, just a little crooked as she leaned to press a soft kiss against Neela's head. "If you wish, I will call you Neela." It was a little strange, as Jordan got used to all the little rules and strange eccentricities that were never there in the Divine Court. There were never strange little things that Jordan had to keep track of for every little person that she met, but it was enrapturing. 

"Good, and...if you want, you can choose a new name. I know you said that Jordan was a name that was assigned to you, but I dunno how much you actually like it," Neela toyed with her hair, wrapping it around her finger and tugging on it slightly, "I would never want to like, tell you what to feel or what attitude to take towards your name, but-"

"-But you like Jordan, don't you?" Jordan's voice was slightly teasing, just enough to make Neela know that she didn't mind, "I like it too, it's enjoyable and wonderful and you say it so beautifully." And that's what it all boiled down to, wasn't it? Jordan's only real interaction with her name being the human that she was assigned to protect (and she really protected her too, a bit too well but that's always how these things went, huh? God says "love humans" and someone does it too well). The only time she heard it spoken in human tongues was Neela greeting her, how Neela said it and sung it and chirped it and laughed it out. Jordan, as they said it, was only good memories.

"Alright, great!" Neela's eyes sparkled and Jordan realized that maybe the stars weren't the only things that burned, weren't the only things that shone. The world began to fade around her and Jordan shoved that to the back of her mind, she wanted to stay in the moment, to preserve one fleeting moment of happiness with Neela. So many things were fleeting, the heartbeat of the bright human star in front of her, the tree that had been planted outside of Neela's home for decades, everything was so fleeting. 

But that didn't mean useless, that didn't mean pointless. Some things were prettier because they were fleeting, and some things wouldn't have the same impact if they lasted forever. But that didn't mean the impact they made while here didn't happen, that didn't mean that there was no mark on the world for it. God said to love humanity, to love Earth and all of it's inhabitants, and Jordan doesn't understand why some Angels don't understand what that truly means. It didn't mean to tolerate and scoff at the strange little games that human play, it didn't mean scoff and ignore the wonderful fleeting of hearing a baby's first laugh.

Angels who fell seemed to be the only ones following orders, and Jordan was rethinking just how fair the entire system was. Why was she cast down for following her orders when her orders were to love and protect Neela? Why did she have to abandoned her mission just for the way that the world was supposed to go? Why did Neela have to die, and why did her avoiding that fate be seen as such a horrifying crime that her wings were taken? Jordan doesn't regret a lot of things, she finds the feeling useless especially when there was nothing to do to help and nothing to be done but move forward, and saving Neela wasn't one of those things.

Not even when she got offers to come back home if she only righted everything and killed Neela. To set the world back in balance but fail her mission in the way it truly mattered. Jordan would fail her mission even if it got her wings back, and that would be a regret she would've carried forever. So she won't, and she'll remain a protector for Neela and her family (all of them, she has eternity after all and Neela won't end when her body does). A worthier mission than whatever Heaven would've told her to, a worthier mission than anything that would make the Divine Choir sing her name (not in the way Neela does it when she's hiding a surprise behind her back). And Jordan will carry it out with the same pride that Neela goes about her daily life with.

"I've been thinking, Neela," Jordan's voice was soft and murmured out as she drummed a familiar war beat on her knee. She didn't continue, didn't say what she was thinking about, but that had become usual for her. She left sentences like she left everything, hanging and abandoned as she flitted to the next thing. Her mind was endless, a thousand universes all colliding and expanding at once and it was hard for her to keep track of all the loose ends that she had hanging around her head.

Neela didn't mind, she never really minded any of Jordan's oddness when it reared it's many heads. She just silently picked her switch back up as she fiddled with it, the soft techno music playing out in the quiet night as Jordan returned to staring at the stars. The song reminded Jordan of a battle drum that she had once sounded in a war that she had barely been conscious for, just another puppet on a string fighting for a cause that she was told that she believed in. It sounded better now, especially as it was accompanied by the button mashing and slight noises of concentration that Neela made.

The crickets in the background helped as well, all of the imperfect out of time Earth sounds that never quite reached Heaven. Never quite made their unique and odd way into the background of the Choir, and Jordan doesn't understand why. The imperfections are just what make it perfect, make it something worthy of listening to and handling with the same amount of care that all of those members treated their crystalline instruments with.

"Do you find imperfection beautiful?" Jordan asked after a while of silence, having moved to lay back on the roof to better stare up at the stars and the clouds. She thought about how angels were depicted as laying on clouds and she wondered if anyone was looking down on her. She wondered if they pitied her or envied her, and she wasn't sure which was the correct response. Pity, maybe because of her lack of wings and her lack of powers as anything other than a demon (was she a demon? were all fallen angels demons or was Jordan the first of her kind). Or maybe envy, envy that she could follow her dream and love humans as they were commanded to. Envy that she never failed a single mission, that she would never be trapped again and she had freedom.

Jordan wondered how she felt about them, up on their clouds with their crystalline objects and golden gates and masks. She wondered what happened to hers, what happened to the gold and if it melted as she was cast down. She wondered a lot about that, about where her divinity had been redistributed without her there to hold it all within herself. Maybe it mattered, maybe it didn't, Jordan didn't really care at this point. She was divine in her own right, finally loved and loving humans as she was commanded, even if it meant turning her back on other commands.

A divine paradox, maybe that's what she was. Maybe she was something that those up above and those down below would discuss for as long as it took her to burn out, another war to last a millennium over just who had claim to her deeds. It would be something, a legacy at least (there was something so human about legacies, about having to leave something behind you and wanting to be remembered). Instead of just burning out and being replaced with the next angel, Jordan could have something that lived past her. Maybe humans were onto something, about legacies and living past your years.

After all, that was why she wanted to protect Neela's family until Neela was but a dead memory in the souls of her descendents. If she protected the family, then she would be protecting Neela. Her work, her legacy, her family and all the little bits of her spirit that carried on. Her smile in one grandchild, maybe a certain vocal tick in another, and so it would keep going until every bit of Neela was gone, and then Jordan could go supernova. Burn out and leave behind a family of happy people that all look just a little bit like the spitfire she fell for. A final farewell to a woman who would've been long dead at that point, long passed on and more than happy with wherever her soul landed. Something in her honor, something that Neela would understand no matter what form she took. 

And if Jordan didn't combust at the end of it all, and if Jordan was still there, she would restart. She would love again (and she knew that's what Neela would want for her, Neela was not selfish and Neela was not foolish), and she would protect the family until everything that made up her composite lover was gone and restart the cycle. An eternal protector of all the lights on earth like she protected the lights in the sky so many eons ago. Maybe that would be a legacy, maybe an angel could finally have a legacy.

"I do, actually," Neela's voice brought Jordan back down to the present like she tugged on a string, "Imperfection is...really great sometimes. I mean, we're all imperfect by nature, I definitely don't think I'm perfect. And I think I'm pretty great because of that, I laugh a little too loud, but people like that. I enjoy getting muddy on rainy days and maybe tracking that mud into the house, and that ruins the so called perfection of my house. But isn't it worth it? Isn't it worth it to lose perfection at the cost of fun?" Neela grinned, crooked and wild like she always was, up at Jordan with an almost challenging glint in her eyes. 

Jordan let out a loud laugh, something that rustled the crows from the old oak tree out in front and made the bats take flight across the sky. Her laughs were always loud and wild and unrestrained like the lion that she used to be part (it was strange, to no longer have more heads that lay unseen and no curling horns tucked away to be wary of). "I'd say it is," And with all of her sentences, there were layers. The imperfection of who she was now for the fun of Neela, the imperfection of the individual cricket for the fun of the symphony. "I'd definitely say that fun is worth the price of perfection," She crossed her arms underneath her head, staring up at the stars as she imagined each of them to be a halo looking down at her.

It felt small, almost, to be staring up at the Choir she used to be apart of, at the family she used to sound the horns for. But it felt satisfying as well, the sort of childish taunting that Jordan got to enjoy Earth with all of God's creations because of her treason (because of her devotion to her mission). She wanted to laugh at them, with their perfect masks in perfect unison, but she was above that. She thinks she pities them, but she's not quite sure.

As she hears Neela's voice hitch and a little yelp sound out as she almost fell off the roof, she realized she doesn't care. Doesn't care if she pities or envies them or how they feel about her. Because they don't have this, they don't have the imperfect fun of humanity and they don't have Neela (and in Jordan's mind, she allows herself to be selfish, to be glad that she was the only one who got to enjoy all of Neela's quirks in full). 

"Do you wanna get down? It's getting a little cold," Neela rubbed at her bare upper arms, giving a shaky little grin, and Jordan knew it wasn't the cold getting to her. Maybe it was the danger of the roof or how distant Jordan seemed or maybe she really was just cold, whatever the reason there was only one answer.

"Of course, I'll get down first," with a slight grunt, Jordan let herself slide off the roof and land on the ground. She couldn't rise to the height that she used to, couldn't muster up the same divine fury that she used to be able to, but she could be tall enough to help Neela off the roof and small enough to fit in bed with her. And wasn't that enough? Why bother rising taller than the tallest buildings when all she needed to do was help someone off the roof? Why would she need to be able to destroy towns with one shout when all she needed to do was protect Neela in this moment, in this second and this wonderful little scene as Jordan let herself shrink and be pulled inside the cozy home that Neela had made.

The wonderful scene as she felt the glow of the hearth and the laughter that rang in her ears as Neela moved to make them both hot chocolate. Dumping a few too many chili flakes into her own cup as Jordan pulled out the cinnamon sticks and whipped cream (the one that she had made by hand in an attempt to impress Neela), and the TV blared in the background some silly show that they would eventually drift towards watching. All cuddled up on the couch and Jordan would look at her face and think so very hard about how much she loved her.

How she missed being able to wrap her wings around her, missed being able to protect her in a way that Neela could see. But it was okay, because Neela knew all the same. Neela knew the lengths that Jordan would go to for her, she knew it since her wings combusted and she fell right in front of her. Not many humans could say an angel fell for them, but Neela could. Neela could do a lot of things that most humans couldn't do (including somehow sing an instrumental fight song that played in her video game).

Jordan loved her, so painfully bright and burning that it almost hurt to think about. Hurt like staring into the sun hurt, like thinking about the past could hurt, but sweeter and lovely and something that Jordan would treasure and cherish in the pit of her chest for time immemorial. Until the stars and the sun and she herself burn out, she would remember the sweet hurt of loving Neela Kumar in every way that she could.

Maybe this was what a legacy was. Maybe a legacy was how you loved and how you kept that love.


End file.
